Quote:
Originally posted by Strange Famous
The freedom not to be repulsed by offensive and hateful speech is as important as the freedom of speech.
In America, most recently, the whole Kobe rape thing has shown the weakness of the slavish believe that the freedom of speech is everything - the media is allowed to reveal the identity and harass a potential rape victim, all in the name of "free speech"
The freedom of speech should not apply to all - we should not be free to harass by speech or communication, to incite violence, to incite gross prejudice against any ethnic or societal group, or to attempt to influance criminal trials by "free speech"
The freedom of political ideoligy is important, but so is the freedom of ordinary people not to be exposed to offensive material.
A truck showing aborted fetus' is an outrage of public decency, and the person resposnible for it will be prosecuted as such in any decent and civilised society
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But who is to decide a society's standard of "public decency?" Everyone has their own level of what they find repulsive and it would be difficult to define a society's level of consensus. Plus by allowing for restriction on public speech on the basis of "public decency" you give government an easy way to justify censorship of political discourse by labeling your beliefs "hateful."
I think the best way to limit true hate is to let the fools say what they want and expose themselves for what they are.
Regarding displays of naked women and aborted fetuses on motor vehicles, I recognize that the state has some say in the specifications of your car as a condition for using public roads, and I think that if what you have on your car is clearly going to distract a lot of other drivers, the state can legitimately say it shouldn't be there, for the sake of safety. I do recognize that there is a gray area to this (what about billboards, etc.) but I think restricting distracting car art falls into the same domain that prevents people from watching TV when they drive.